English pork pies — a popular item in Massachusetts — are on the menu every Tuesday. The soft-crusted, pork-gravy infused pie was actually what motivated Retelle to open a restaurant, but he decided against focusing on just that dish.

“We weren’t sure whether pork pies would be really accepted by the locals,” he said.

Appalachia’s location, though, leaves no doubt as to its potential.

The 32-seat café is the former home of the Country Inn Restaurant, a longtime hangout for residents and once host to a faction of regular customers called The Coffee Group.

Community and church groups also often used Country Inn to meet, citing its atmosphere.

Retelle is hopeful that Appalachia can become that same go-to gathering spot.

“The whole coffee shop idea, there’s no place to go [here] but fast food, diners, or if you go to 7-Eleven,” he said. “We wanted some better coffee than that. … You’ve got a social scene at the local McDonald’s. We wanted to create a place for other people to come. And them, too.”

Offering homemade food is also important to Retelle, who calls baking bread his “passion.”

“Foodwise, I just want ingredients. I want as little pre-prepared, factory-made stuff as possible,” he said. “I wanted to make real food from real ingredients and offer it to people. I pretty much stopped eating at other places. I can’t taste the salt when I eat [something there], but I can feel it later. I’m sick of it.”

Heather Barrix, Retelle’s only paid employee, says residents are still figuring Appalachia out. She hopes a presence on Facebook will lead to building a customer base of young people.

“The bread’s awesome,” said Barrix, 19, who dates Retelle’s stepson.

Retelle envisions expanding the hours — Appalachia closes at 5 p.m. — and offering musical performances at some point, which should help attract people of all ages. The room has “great acoustics,” he said.

But that’s looking months ahead. Retelle is busy enough catching up with his culinary past as a restaurant owner.

“I used to think I worked hard doing tree work, but my God,” he said. “I could at least go home and not have to think about it.”